A special three-week
exhibition of airmail postage was shown from 12 to 30 May 1969 at the Montreal
headquarters of ICAO to mark the 50th anniversary of Alcock and
Brown’s feat. The
exhibition featured one of the largest collection of rare air mail postage ever
shown in North America, and was organized by Mr. R.J. Hiscock, noted Montreal
philatelist and Chief of the ICAO Management Services Office. Airmail postage
of 66 nations was presented at the exhibition.

From the early ventures in
the airborne delivery of mail, world civil aviation now carries letters into
the farthest reaches of civilization. International airmail provides a medium
of fast communications, and encourages greater understanding and trade among
people of different nations and different cultures throughout the world.

Commemorative
cover addressed to R.J. Hiscock.

The Canadian
green stamp (Scott #493), showing a globe and tools of various trades, was
issued on 21 May 1969 for the 50th anniversary of the
International Labour Organization (ILO). Postmark dated 21 May 1969.

The first nation to
officially authorize airmail was India when, in 1911, a small aircraft flew six
miles to deliver 6,500 letters and cards. Italy, Australia, the United States,
Great Britain and France also pioneered in the establishment of airmail
services in the early days of aviation history. The Government of Italy had
experimental airmail flights as early as May 1908, but issued provisional
airmail postage only in May 1917.

Nearly a year later, Austria
established a regular international airmail service between Vienna and Kiev,
Russia. Similar services were soon established by other countries as well, i.e.
London to Paris in 1919, Seattle to Victoria, B.C., Canada, in 1920.

Newfoundland – 9
June 1919

Scott #C2

These were relatively short
distances, however; the first long distance delivery occurred when Captain John
Alcock and Lieutenant Arthur Whitten Brown (Alcock and Brown) flew, for the
first time in history, non-stop across the North Atlantic Ocean from St.
John’s, Newfoundland to Clifden, Ireland on 14-15 June 1919 in a Vickers Vimy bomber in an
historic 16-hour flight.

It is to be noted that, in
1913, Britain’s The Daily Mail newspaper had offered a £10,000 prize for
the first crossing of the Atlantic in a heavier than air machine. In pursuit of
the prize and the glory that would accompany the win, Alcock and Brown were
chosen by Vickers Limited to compete in the transatlantic race. Fitted with
extra fuel tanks, a modified Vickers-Vimy World War I bomber was shipped
to Newfoundland; this place was a favoured take-off point for pilots attempting
to cross the Atlantic. Once reassembled, Alcock and Brown performed several
test flights in Newfoundland. On 14 June 1919, they departed Lester’s Field,
St. John’s and some 16 hours later, they crash-landed in a bog at Clifden.
Alcock and Brown has successfully flown the Atlantic non-stop and won the race.
They collected their prize money and donated part of it to the workers who had
built the aircraft. The trip had not been an easy one; the pair of aviators
faced problems of heavy snow, electrical storms, icing on the aircraft, a
damaged radio, and strong winds. On 21 June 1919, Alcock and Brown were
presented to King George V and were knighted. Following the Atlantic crossing,
Brown never flew again; Alcock died in a plane crash in France in late 1919.

Overprint
without the comma after AIR POST.

The exploits of Alcock and
Brown were noted
philatelically at that time when Newfoundland was taking advantage of fledgling
flights by issuing special overprints. On 9 June 1919, the post office of
Newfoundland had overprinted 10,000 of the 15-cent stamp Scott #70, issued on
24 June 1897 for the 400th anniversary of John Cabot’s discovery of
Newfoundland and the 60th year of Queen Victoria’s reign, with the
text Trans-Atlantic/AIR POST,/1919./ONE DOLLAR., to become Scott #C2, in
four black lines; some of these overprints exist without the comma after AIR
POST. Alcock and Brown carried 196
letters and one parcel using Scott #C2 and postmarked between 10 and 13 June at
St. John’s. Alcock took the small mailbag to London, England, where they were
again cancelled on 17 June 1919.

Canada – 13 June
1969

Scott #494

It was the first time mail
was carried by air across the Ocean. “This letter I am sending by the first
transatlantic air post, which I am going to carry …”. These confident words
were written in a letter addressed to his parents by John Alcock on 14 June
1919. A few hours after landing, his letter was stamped and posted. The first
transatlantic airmail delivery had been accomplished. Alcock and Brown risked their
lives in a momentous adventure across the Ocean, as they crash-landed in a bog.

The Canadian stamp (Scott
#494), issued on 13 June 1969 for the 50th anniversary of the first
non-stop transatlantic flight, shows the Vickers Vimy and a map of the
Atlantic.

American
pilot Steve Fossett and co-pilot/navigator Mark Rebholz successfully re-created
the historic, first-ever 1919 transatlantic flight of John Alcock and Arthur
Whitten Brown, landing their replica of the Vickers Vimy wood and canvas
biplane on the Connemara Championship Golf Links in Clifden, Ireland, just
after 17h00 local time on 3 July 2005. The re-enactment of this landmark in the
world of air transport, following the original route exactly, took 18 hours 15
minutes, as Fossett and Rebholz took off Saturday night 2 July 2005 from St
John's, Newfoundland, and flew at low altitude and at approximately 100 knots
airspeed all through the night, navigating by sextant, compass and chart
(instruments available to the crew in 1919), and hand-flying the accurate
replica of the WWI era bomber. The open-cockpit biplane was almost the same as
the original Vimy flown by Alcock and Brown, but it had two Canadian Orenda V-8
engines in place of the original pair of Rolls-Royce Eagle V-12s.

Newfoundland – 1932 - Unissued stamp

An unissued
stamp, related to the First Transatlantic Air Mail and Passenger Flight, is
interesting to note. In 1932, the government of Newfoundland had the Bureau of
Engraving of Minneapolis, Minn., produce 400,000 of the stamp under a contract
with Aerial World Tours of Minneapolis. The tour company was to sell the stamps
to raise money for the flight and took a lot of 25,000 stamps to sell. The
stamps would be good for airmail postage on the flight. The company procured a
Sikorsky seaplane and stationed it on Wayzata Bay in Lake Minnetonka, but it
was unable to raise enough money to make the flight. On 10 September 1932,
Newfoundland cancelled the contract and ordered the bank holding the balance of
the 375,000 stamps to destroy them.

Mail
franked with the special Trans-Atlantic Air Post stamp and marked with the
slogan commemorating the 10th anniversary of Alcock
and Brown’s
feat.